


I believe in you

by PleaseDontFindThisMom



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dark Peter Parker, M/M, Peter's age is not specified but he's legal, So be warned, and bucky too I guess, but there is violence murder and sex, serial killer au, there is no explicit depiction of violence murder or sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25990477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PleaseDontFindThisMom/pseuds/PleaseDontFindThisMom
Summary: Peter Parker is a sweet human. He is overly enthusiastic every time he sees a dog, he helps old ladies across the street while spidermanning and he can talk hours to an end about Star Wars.Or that’s how it was supposed to be at least.Because the smirking boy hunched over bleeding body is not sweet.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Avengers Team, James "Bucky" Barnes/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Everyone
Kudos: 152





	I believe in you

Peter Parker is a sweet human. He is overly enthusiastic every time he sees a dog, he helps old ladies across the street while spidermanning and he can talk hours to an end about Star Wars. 

Or that’s how it was supposed to be at least.

Because the smirking boy hunched over a bleeding body is not sweet. The boy who dug out the bleeding man’s windpipe is not sweet. The blood splattered murderer who is looking intently as the man on the ground tries to will his broken bones to mend together so he could run is not sweet.

It makes you wonder.

How did it all start? Maybe something was wrong from the beginning. Maybe something happened when Hydra kidnapped the boy. Maybe it came to be when the radioactive spider bit him. Maybe it happened along the way, every new obstacle pushing him even more under. Maybe it all rolled in action when Steven Westcott laid his hands on him for the first time. Maybe it truly began only when James Barnes stepped into his life.

Maybe.

May Parker was a person who believed in living. She believed that people weren’t to be killed as a punishment. She believed in forgiving. 

Peter wasn’t a person like May Parker.

Because when Skip touched him in ways no kid should ever be touched, when he whispered words no kid should hear and when he looked in a way no kid should be looked at, Peter wished him death.

Peter felt the hands on his skin, heard the worlds and noticed the gazes. And he hated Skip. Oh how much he hated Skip.

Peter wanted him dead.

When Ben died, it felt like an end to Peter. 

Expect nothing was ending. The world turned, days changed and life went on.

So Peter tried. He honored his uncle’s final words to him and did his best to help people, save them. Did his best to flush away the crimson memory of his uncle bleeding to death in his arms. 

And Peter did well. He became New York's hero, vigilante who helped in small ways and in big crisis. Some people liked him. Some hated him. Some loved him. And the crime rates went down. People were overall more safe with him around. There were less accidents that ended badly.

But Peter didn’t feel great. Because the villains bounced back. Because it never ended. Because the people he saved could be dead the very next day.

So he didn’t feel too bad when he failed to save the rapist from killing himself.

In fact, next time he was the one pulling the trigger.

“Peter, I want you to meet someone.”

Those were the words that left Tony’s lips before he introduced Peter to Bucky. James Barnes. Winter Soldier. Freshly reformed from Wakanda.

“Nice to meet you Mr James Bucky Barnes Sir.”

Those were the words that left Peter’s lips the first time he met James.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Those were the words that left Bucky’s lips the first time he met Peter.

“Your metal arm… It’s amazing.”

“Huh?”

“Your arm. It’s basically a miracle with how advanced it is. You can move it just as easily as your real arm, you can feel with it, it’s stronger and more durable than a normal arm… Shuri is truly a genius. She somehow made working nervous system-”

“No, I mean, it is really advanced and works well, but aren’t you scared of it? It has killed a lot of people.”

“With all due respect, Mr Barnes, that arm killed no one. The people who controlled you and thus that arm killed people. It is a weapon, a tool. It has no capacity of morals and thus can’t be held accountable for it’s deeds.”

“...That’s- I mean- no- well. Thank you.”

Bucky felt relaxed with Peter.

Peter didn’t pretend his past didn’t happen like some did. He didn’t pretend what he did was right. He didn’t pretend Bucky wasn’t dangerous. He didn’t pretend he was relaxed with him (didn't have to). He didn’t pretend he didn’t fear for Bucky’s sake.

No.

Peter was there to listen, there to support and he was there to fill the silence that was threatening to swallow Bucky. He did his damn best to get to actually know Bucky under all the years of trauma, the man behind the weapon. He moved at a pace that pushed Bucky forward, but didn’t force him into anything. He made sure that Bucky was comfortable without being patronizing.

And Peter was amazing.

He was adorable, cute, compassionate, warm and bright. He pushed himself to do his best, walked along his morals. He cared about people around him. He was also smart, witty and creative.

And he answered.

He told

He told Bucky when he for the first time shot a bullet through someone’s skull.

When Hydra kidnapped Peter he was terrified.

He had heard about them from Bucky, had heard it all. Everything they did to him, how they broke him. And he didn’t want to go through it. He had heard how you would just eventually suffocate under the pressure and comply.

So he pretended.

He played along. They tested his limits and he complied. They wiped him and he pretended it worked. They called him spider and he answered. They made him kill and he did.

Again and again and again.

Until, after three months, he got the chance to blow the whole place up in flames and run.

“I’m- I’m just so tired, y’know?”

“Of what?”

“They just keep coming back. No matter how many times I web them up, take them to authorities, they just keep bouncing back up. And the organizations, don’t even get me started on those. They are kinda like Hydra in that, cut one head and two more will grow.”

“I see.”

“I just- I want to make it end, once and for all. Burn the hydra’s body, kill it real good.”

“I’m sure you could actually do it.”

“Yeah. Maybe I could.”

Bucky doesn’t know what it was about Peter. 

Because Bucky wanted to change into a better person.

But with Peter, he felt good just as he was, with all the blood still staining his hands.

It felt right.

In Wakanda, he had thrived to get control of himself and eventually he got it. He tried to settle into a new century, into a new set of codes and norms. Forget all about Hydra and move on, with people who cared by his side.

And it was suffocating. The pressure to be better, to do better, to be someone else.

Then Peter stepped in.

Peter didn’t try to change him. He gave him room to be a person he wanted to be, even if that meant he would revert back into Winter Soldier. He gave him support and didn’t push his ideas on him.

Bucky felt free with him in a way he didn’t feel with anyone else. Especially after Peter was kidnapped by Hydra. After he murmured into his ear in the dead of night how he survived.

Steve was overly worried all the time. Natasha didn’t see him in the person Hydra molded him into. Clint was wary around him. Tony ignored his past most of the time. Thor didn’t understand what was happening, not really. Sam tried to mold him into a new person, get over his old personality altogether. Bruce didn’t acknowledge his wrong doings most of the time.

But Peter did none of it.

“You just kept pretending that you were under their influence until you were one hundred percent sure you could take them all down.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s- you probably wouldn’t have succeeded without your healing factor protecting you from the wiping, but damn that took guts.”

“It was kinda scary I guess. But I did learn a lot.”

“Aren’t you positive.”

“But the important bit is that I burned them down for good. I only wish I could have stolen more information before escaping.”

“You got a good bit. And it will be easier to extract more information when you have more people, more time and you don’t have to burn it all.”

“Next time then.”

“Next time.”

Bucky was Peter’s favorite person.

Peter liked and loved many people but they lacked in ways Bucky didn’t. In ways that mattered more.

Deadpool would understand the killing, but he wouldn’t see the moral code behind it, would stick with seeing it from his own point of view.

Tony and May would listen and care like a parent would, but their care was smothering, suffocating, molding.

Natasha and Steve would push him into being better, better at fighting, better as a person, but they would set goals of their own liking, not asking his input.

Bruce was there to listen, but he judged.

Sam and Clint were friends, but they couldn’t be trusted with secrets, even less so than with others.

Daredevil and Thor took Peter’s opinion into account, but didn’t try to understand.

Bucky lacked in many ways, but not in the ways that mattered to Peter and that’s why he was his favorite person.

And that’s why he fell in love with him.

When a new serial killer, Crimson, came at large, Bucky didn’t say anything.

Crimson was almost a myth, one more urban legend whispered during early hours of the day, but eventually authorities were forced to admit there was a new murderer. He didn’t kill in one way. People were suffocated, maimed, shot, strangled, drowned, poisoned, squashed. But the efficiency, the lack of evidence, the victim type, the mere impossibility that someone could pull any of the murders of, the mere swiftness that the murderer killed his victims and disappeared - it all made people see that there just couldn't be more than one person, one party behind it all.

Bucky knew it was only one person who went around killing people law couldn’t reach.

And he didn’t say anything.

“You should be more careful, you could have gotten caught.”

“Please, I had it under control.”

“Got shot tho.”

“Who even sleeps with gun under their pillow? Even Natasha keeps hers next to bed.”

“Just- just be more careful. Try to take it easy maybe.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Then let me come with you.”

The first time they kiss, they are both soaked in blood and are hiding in old motor boat.

It had been almost half a year since Crimson started killing and almost two months since Bucky became part of Crimson. With Bucky, they could kill more people, more often, in more efficient and secretive manner.

It was just some rich asshole - who abused his daughter by the way - who decided that it would be a brilliant idea to set a bomb go off in his house if anyone broke in during the night. A bomb that alerted all the neighbors and blew half of the house away. It was also the reason he didn’t get a fast death. No, he was left choking on his own tongue and poisoned just to be sure.

When the police car curved to the road in front of the house, Peter and Bucky were forced to run. It wasn’t the first time they had had to run, but it was the first time they got that bad of a head start. They jumped over the roofs, ran along the narrow roads, vanishing into the labyrinthine back streets in the end. But just to be sure they ran for miles until they reached a port and dived under the covers of an old motor boat. If someone came searching for them in the boat they would be found but as long as no one came they were dead to the world.

Catching their breaths, high on adrenaline, tasting the copper and sweat they had locked eyes. Peter had leaned forward, Bucky had cupped his cheek and just like that their lips had met. 

The first kiss had been chaste, barely there. The second one happened right after the first, slightly longer, smearing the blood on their lips. By the third Peter’s hands were wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders one hand in the brunet’s hair and Bucky had dragged the smaller one halfway onto his lap, hands on his waist.

It’s truly ironic that you can hide being a serial killer but not being in a relationship from the Avengers.

It had taken Natasha two days to be sure of the relationship, Clint three and the others were told about it.

After yelling, mediation and one broken armchair the others accepted the relationship. Set of rules were made, like curfew and permitted amount of PDA, followed by promises to keep it civil.

That night, next to some rapists remains, Bucky and Peter laughed at the irony of it all.

“We should probably wait couple days before hitting again. We could take down Hydra base while we are at it tho.”

“Honestly, taking the bases out is vexing. Remind me why we are doing it again.”

“So that Hydra can be shut down and so that when Hydra is down the bases won’t rise under a new name.”

“Well, no choice then. Where is it?”

“It’s in Canada. Actually, there are like three bases close by.”

“Your close by is three hours apart, so it doesn’t count.”

“Still, pretty close by. So if we take six or seven days off, we could take them all out.”

“Lovers retreat, huh?”

“Yeah. We haven’t had one yet, so others won’t probably mind. Especially since it’s Canada, the landscapes are amazing.”

“Sounds nice all in all. What about Crimson tho? And what's our excuse for the bases?”

“We can set a bomb ahead of time and poison food. And if someone asks about the Hydra bases, we just tell we came upon them and didn’t have time to call in more people before some big thing happened.”

“Very exact excuse. What, they tried to experiment on some poor people?”

“Maybe… They tried to kidnap me again! Or take you back! So then we have the panic factor to add to the excuse.”

“That sounds actually pretty good. So, if we have this wrapped up, I should probably head back. Steve will come looking for me soon.”

“Okay, see you later, love you!”

“...”

“...”

“...Wait, don’t you try to swing away from me!”

“I, uh, yeah-”

“I- I love you too, you know.”

Nick liked James and Peter rather much. They were both capable, self-imposed and they brought in results.

When they had asked Nick to keep quiet about them busting Hydra bases, he had agreed on the condition they wouldn’t try to bite more than they could chew. If they got the job done, did it well and with minimal drawbacks, who was he to say no when they were concerned that their friends worry over the issue would slow them down or hinder their work?

So Nick didn’t tell the Avengers.

Instead he personally went over their reports - short and to the point, just how he liked them - and kept it all under the wraps, only troubling them when something bigger came up.

So Nick indeed liked James and Peter rather much.

After all, he had every reason to.

“Do you think people are disappointed in Spiderman since he hasn’t caught Crimson yet.”

“The irony is killing me. But no, I don’t think so. After all, no one knows what to look out for. Crimson is unpredictable, kills people all around New York and sometimes outside. So since there is no one to look out for and they are at large, there is no reason to assume that Spiderman would know who to look for.”

“That’s… true. Thanks.”

“Anything doll.”

When the Avenger’s were tasked with finding out as much as possible about Crimson, Peter and Bucky went through the stages of amusement, panic, anxiety, worry and annoyance in under five minutes. They were suspecting something like this would happen eventually.

In the end the Avengers couldn’t come up with anything new really. They could say that it was at most a small organization, no more than three or four at large and probably under ten people in total but more than one, most likely around five. They also could tell that only criminals were being offed, a fact that the police were suspecting but couldn’t prove yet. They also dug up more cases for Crimson that weren’t linked to them yet.

Crimson was a shadow.

Bucky and Peter were overjoyed when their team hit dead ends left and right, but they were on high alert anyway. No reason to take them lightly, especially when they had access to cameras, government databases and had specialists of all kinds working with them.

Unluckily for them so had Crimson.

Traces were covered even more carefully, targets chosen even more at random and attacks were planned even more accurately and with care to avoid being hasty or sloppy.

SHIELD and the government weren’t happy, but took what they could. And right now they could get nothing.

“You know, we could… Slow down for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, slow our pace with Crimson.”

“I hear what you are saying, but I don’t really get it.”

“Well, with Avenger’s on the case along with SHIELD there is a big chance of getting caught.”

“Buck, we can’t just… Slow down. The further along we come, the more people are gonna worry and the more people are gonna try to find us.”

“I know and the ideal would be them eventually giving up if we just push through, but that doesn’t seem… Worth the risk. I don-”

“Worth the risk? This needs to be done, it’s not a question about the risks.”

“I know.”

“What you know?”

“That slowing down means less people getting what’s coming for them.”

“Exactly.”

“And I see that, but-”

“No buts. What this sounds like to me is that you don’t believe we can pull through.”

“There is no question about that, we absolutely could. I just care about you and I’m bit scared with the Avengers still actively up our asses.”

“Buck… Look at me. We are so careful. We plan, we think and we never go when we are dubious about success. Buck, I believe in us. I believe we can do it. I believe in you.”

“I- doll, of course I believe in us. I just want you safe. I don’t think I could take it if they got you.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m not gonna get caught, neither of us is. We are best of the best, we know what we are doing. It’s been almost a year, and we are still ghosts to them.”

Life moves on. Peter and Bucky’s relationship became fact, norm that nobody questioned anymore. No more teasing comments or loaded glares.

Same happened with Crimson. The government did damage control, communicating with the criminal through public broadcasts and bloody messages. They made it known that Crimson only went after more serious criminals that the law couldn’t get. Getting the avenging murderers’ identities known was secondary worry as new threats and bigger problems arose.

SHIELD and Avengers were pulled back, Crimson’s case left as an unsolved case to return to when they had way too much time on their hands or new information came to light.

“Ah, ah, right- right there, oh-”

“You like it doll? Getting fucked like this.”

“Yes, yes, I do, YES, right there, please, please,”

“You have to be more precise. Please what? Tell me or I can’t do it.”

“You know, know what I meAN- AH, please, pLEASE, faster, harder, right there, that spot-”

“You mean here?”

“AH, yes, feels so good, yes.”

“So faster and harder was it?”

“AH-”

As time went by, they were able to track down even higher up criminals. Mob bosses, drug dealers high in the chain, arm dealers overseas. But the stakes rose along with the profits.

It meant more time spent planning, more time spent scouting information, more time spent covering tracks. Now they didn’t have only legal side up theirs, but the criminal organizations too.

But killing off people in control was so much more beneficial. 

So much more fun.

“We are taking pretty pointless risk sleeping here.”

“But doesn’t the sheer idea of it excite you. I can see it you know. Smell it, hear it in your heartbeat.”

“No denying it then. But it is still a pretty pointless risk still.”

“And?”

“And it makes me excited.”

“Told ya!”

“So does the risk of getting caught do it for you, hm?”

“Well, kinda? I mean, we aren’t actually at risk. I believe in us.”

“You are really putting too much faith in your ability to notice anything when you are getting laid.”

“Not really. When there is the possibility of anyone walking in, I’m more aware. And you are here with me.”

“You truly do believe in me.”

“I really do.”

“I believe in you too, you know. Only you.”

“I- ah- know. Only you, only us.”

“Only us.”

“How long are you gonna stare at him?”

Peter rises his head to meet his lover's eyes. Bucky’s voice is stern, but his gaze's full of affection. 

“Don’t go saying that you weren’t looking too.” Bucky raises his hands up, defeated, and Peter smirks. Standing up he rises up onto his toes to press kiss onto the taller's lips. Moving together - like they had so many times before - lips and tongues meeting, until eventually parting, warm breaths blending into one.

“Shall we go then, my love?”


End file.
